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Is it possible for an NFL team to be so bad they go 0-17 or just forfeit the rest of the year out of respect for their opponents time? I’ve never wondered this until now. Not even the Lions or the Browns in any year ever sucked to quite the degree required for this thought to conjure.
Enter the 2019 Miami Dolphins.
The Dolphins offense is terrible, but just normal terrible. This column is about their defense. They allowed running quarterback Lamar Jackson not only a perfect quarterback rating in Week 1, but an insane 16.2 average yards per attempt (Y/A). Y/A is no meaningless stat. It is basically the standard analysts use to measure quarterback success.
How insane is 16.2 Y/A?
Tom Brady has played in 270 games and has never once held a 16 Y/A average in any game. As a matter of fact, only four quarterbacks in NFL history have a game with a higher Y/A. Plainly speaking, Lamar Jackson’s passing performance in Week 1 was the fifth most efficient quarterback performance of all time. Let’s put that in perspective. According to this Reddit thread, there have been a grand total of 15,790 NFL games ever played. Of those 15,790 games, presumably 31,580 quarterbacks played. The math works like this: the 2019 Dolphins took all of roughly three quarters of a game to allow a running quarterback to be in precisely the 99.987 percentile of all quarterback Y/A performances ever. This is not ideal.
Luckily for the Dolphins, the Ravens eventually pulled the plug on Jackson and put in their backup Robert Griffin III to finish the game. Griffin struggled comparatively as his 144.4 quarterback rating was 14 less than Jackson’s. A reinvigorated Dolphins defense was able to stiffen up and hold Griffin to a mere 6/6 passing with 55 yards and a touchdown before likely getting another concussion out of pure boredom.
This is all pretty bad for Miami’s defense so let’s take the sandwich approach with this criticism and add some positive meat. After holding Griffin to about two thirds the Y/A of Jackson at 10.91, Miami’s effort cooled the Ravens offense to just barely averaging a first down on every pass attempt. If Miami can build on this, it’s conceivable that someone will soon have to teach the down marker guy that it’s possible to change the sign from “1” to “2”. The down marker tutorial can probably stop there.
But hey, passing is only one component of offense. What about total yards? The Dolphins gave up a gentlemen’s 643 yards to the Ravens in Week 1. This is the most by any team since the Jaguars gave up 653 to the Texans in November of 2012. After the loss, the Jaguars record stood at 1-9 on the year. This should give the 2019 Dolphins some hope.
But hey, total yards only says so much too. What about drive success? Some defenses give up yards by design and stiffen up in the red zone. If the Dolphins were using this strategy, their “bend but don’t break” defense was effectively made out of .5mm pencil lead. Below is a distribution plotting all average points per drive (PPD) allowed from 2009 – 2018. In this time span, out of 5118 team performances, the most PPD any defense averaged giving up in a single game was 5.5:
In a league of suck of their own, the 2019 Dolphins Week 1 performance separated themselves from actual NFL defenses at precisely 5.9 PPD as demonstrated by the vertical line. Congratulations to the 2019 Dolphins defense for limiting an opposing offense to a single touchdown on each possession of a game.
I’m not one to beat a dead horse when it’s down. But a dolphin is a different story. Take a look at this game drive summary:
If you find it hard to believe the Miami Dolphins defense could be this bad in a single game you’d be right. This summary is from a completely different game in which the Indianapolis Colts gave up 5.5 PPD. In an astonishing effort that could make Don Shula roll over in his grave, the 2019 Dolphins managed to do worse in Week 1 by giving up 5.9. And Don Shula isn’t even dead yet.
The best part of how terrible all these record breaking stats are for the Dolphins is that now they get to play against one of the best offensive regimes to ever take the field in Week 2. If you’re attending the game, don’t be surprised to find Miami defensive starters standing at check-points. When prompted by security, simply walk right through them like any other turnstile and be on your way.
The Patriots are favored by 19 points. But before taking the Patriots to cover remember this line implies the Dolphins won’t forfeit for at least three total drives. And historically speaking, there have been only 12 NFL games with a spread of at least 19 since 1975. The favorite covered in only two of those 12.
But this is the 2019 Dolphins. They just gave up 16.2 Y/A to a running quarterback and now have the most successful quarterback to ever play the game coming to town. Tom Brady may not have yet averaged 16.2 Y/A in a game in his 270 chances but he did get close. On October 21 2007, he set his career high game Y/A at 14.16. His opponent? The Miami Dolphins.
Someone keeps tabs on Don Shula this Sunday.
-El Jefe
